Green Light
by Her Name Is Erika
Summary: There’s the sound of an invisible traffic light changing from red to green and Stephen Pensky is slowing learning to let go of his baby girl. Mentions QuinnLogan.


**A/N: Father's Day is just a weekend away and this oneshot popped into my head when I woke up this morning. So, enjoy. I made a backup account with the penname, erikasaysRAWR, so if you see that penname, then you know it's me. I took a line from the song below but listen to the full song. Has the Father's Day, and well, Stephen is thinking of how hard it will be to let his daughter go. Ha.**

**Disclaimer: No. I just own Quinn's dad, Stephen only because I like him better than the version they had on the show. You like Stephen? Read more about him on "All Year Round".**

* * *

"She's waitin' on my blessings before she hits that open road, but baby, get ready, get set, don't go" – _Ready, Set, Don't Go_, Billy Ray Cyrus f. Miley Cyrus

* * *

"Daddy," Quinn sniffled, and glanced at her sparkly shoes. Stephen watched her daughter's little face crumple when tears started to stream down the apple of her cheek. The account knelt down to her level and wiped her tears away.

"What's wrong?"

"What if I don't win the pageant? They are prettier girls than me, and they said my ribbon dance wouldn't win!"

"Oh, Quinn," Stephen smiled, warmly. "You're beautiful. Just go and have fun. And if you don't win," he wiped another tear when his five year old cracked a smile. Her eyes lit up with silent admiration and it caused his heart to be surrounded by warmth. "You're special – you don't need _Little Miss Seattle _to tell you that, okay?"

Stephen saw Quinn smile wider and caught her in a tight hug, "A million squeezes, baby."

"A million squeezes, Daddy."

* * *

Stephen works on client's taxes one Seattle Saturday morning when the doorbell rings.

"Terri, could you get that?"

He stares at all of these numbers, bringing his mug of coffee to his lips while wondering why in the name of everything holy people can't just pay their taxes. America would be an economically safer place if the public just did that.

"Sure, Stephen!"

And a smile touches his lips because after all these years, Stephen is very much attracted to Terri – the daughter of hippie parents – and her all-round optimism with natural beauty. Terri's soft spoken voice reaches her happy octave, and suddenly Stephen hears his wife delightfully offer the mystery guest a seat. Terri's grinning really wide almost flouncing into the kitchen and hugs him from behind, pressing a kiss to his cheek.

"You will never guess who came by."

"Who?"

"Well, maybe if you cleanse your mind from that unhealthy coffee, I'll tell you," and Stephen smiles wearily, pulling his glasses off his face and rubbing a hand over his face before putting them back on. The caffeine does nothing for him anyway, but Terri is pulling his hand and leading him into the living room.

"Oh," Stephen almost does a double take and blinks, but he smiles wryly at the sight of his daughter's boyfriend of nearly seven years. No, Stephen has grown to respect Logan and even see him as a son in the slightest – anyone that makes his little girl _that_ happy earns it, but he has to wonder what Logan is doing in Seattle. Terri sits in the loveseat while he joins her. "Logan, uh, not that I'm not happy to see you, but you realize this isn't California, right?"

"Yeah," he nods, rubbing the back of his neck. "I know. But Quinn doesn't know I'm here. I mean, she knows I'm filming something with my dad in Oregon, but I took a little detour."

"So, you came here under false pretences?"

"If you're trying to ask if I lied – " Logan offers, and Terri nods before he answers with a sigh. "But for once, I actually had to lie. I wanted to come by myself to talk to you guys and Quinn's way too into questioning. I didn't want to back out of this, even though I usually don't back out anything."

"Okay, so what did you want to talk to us about?"

Logan shrugs loosely, "I'm just going to say this real quick because beating around the bush isn't my style."

Terri and Stephen share a look of questioning before looking at Logan.

"Okay," Terri says, with a smile before she frowns looking worried. "But Quinn's okay though, right? I mean, my maternal intuition isn't telling me anything, and," she gestures to the air around the young man and returns to her smiley self. " – the energy from your aura's good. I can see aura's, you know."

"Yeah, she's fine. Almost finished with her doctor school thing," Logan answers, semi-politely ignoring Terri's analysis of his aura since it's sort of expected and just plain weird. "But yeah, I came down here because it thought it would be cool if you guys were okay with me asking your daughter to be my wife."

And Stephen Pensky almost literally sees his almost-doctor-of-a-daughter's childhood flash before his very eyes – from the moment he holds that pink bundle in his arms right through all three school graduations ranging from elementary to PCA Class of 2009 to seeing her at Stanford University and giving her "a million squeezes" when Quinn gets word of getting admission into medical school.

"I'm not a traditional guy but," he pauses, with a masked nervous smile. " – she would have liked it if I did the whole asking-the-parents thing."

"Logan, that was very sweet of you even though you had to lie to my daughter to see us but the intentions make up for the deceit. Honey," Terri says, tapping Stephen's hand lightly two times. "What do you think of that?"

Twenty four years later, Stephen Pensky is looking at the man who can potentially be his son-in-law.

"Wow," he laughs while trying to mask that deer in the headlights look. Some people use humor as their cover, but Quinn's right. He's _really_ not that funny. "After all these years, things still catch me off guard. I kind of thought I was immune to that."

* * *

Stephen always knew Quinn was special. And he always his daughter would change the world one day since she was curious and intuitive to the world around her. At ten years old, she was constantly burying her nose in the nose of a book found on his bookshelf or spouting off some other piece of knowledge Quinn had acquired, and he was happy to listen even though it was the most trivial. The things she said was way too mature for her and Stephen can't help but be fascinated. But this wasn't how he wanted to be informed of his daughter's knowledge and aptitude.

"Mr. & Mrs. Pensky, I'm not going to mince words here," the elementary school principal announced, folding his hands on the table. "Your daughter is showing aptitude in terms of intelligence."

Terri blinked, clearly confused, "But she's only ten. What could that mean?"

"It means," the administrator sighed. " – while Quinn is a very special girl, she's showing a degree of knowledge that is way too mature for a ten-year-old, but this is a good thing."

"How exactly?"

"Well, Mr. Pensky, we could move her into our gifted program and evaluate her to see how far her intelligence can go. The school therapist can run an IQ – "

"No!" the accountant nearly yelled. Regrouping his thoughts, he sat back in his chair and plastered a smile on his face. "Look, I know this is probably highly unorthodox for you, but," he gestured between the space between him and Terri. " – could I have a moment with my wife to talk this over? Alone."

The administrator mulled it over, eyes darting between the parents. He straightened his tie a little and with an awkward clear of his throat, he twisted his chair around and nodded slightly. Generally an easy-going guy, Stephen counted this as one of the rare moments he was truly angry. So what if Quinn was exhibiting intelligence far beyond her ten years? The principal left and the door to his office closed.

"Stephen, you have got to calm down."

He almost was stunned by his wife's uncharacteristic sternness.

"No, I'm not going to calm down," he lowered his voice to a pleading tone. He was adamant. "Terri, I'm not going to have Quinn moved into a gifted class. That's out of the question."

"Our daughter can have her intelligence and curiosity be nourished if she's in a class built for that."

"I," Stephen points to himself, hating to bring up memories of his early school days. " – was in a gifted class at eight years old because I was too smart for my age, okay? It's not easy trying to fake dumb. It wasn't easy for me to be pulled out of a class that I had adapted into, only to be alienated because I was smarter than the other kids in my class," he shrugged, heaving a sigh. "Sure, the seventies were a simpler time but god, Terri, I won't have Quinn yanked out of something she's familiar with. No IQ tests, no psychoanalysts, nothing."

"Okay, Stephen. I understand and Quinn is my daughter as well," the yoga instructor sighed, her usually soft spoken tone taking on a tone that was softer, it sounded like an unintentional whisper.

"I'm seriously putting my foot down."

Terri ran her hand over the side of the face, smile evident in his light brown eyes. She brushed her light brown bangs away from her face which had light brown freckles lining the top of her nose. Petite in stature, her freckles seemed to spill into her cheeks as well.

"Okay," she assured, giving her husband's hand a light squeeze. "We'll let Quinn be."

The administrator came back and Stephen smiled, knowing.

"I'm sorry," the principal said with a light straightening of his tie. The legs of the grey plush chair made impressions on the carpet to match. "So, have you come to a decision? I do believe that intelligence testing will be beneficial and – "

"With all due respect, I don't mean to cut off you again," Stephen paused. "No, actually. I _do_ mean that because this is my daughter we're actually talking about so yeah, I do intend to cut you off."

"Uh," Terri threw the man at the desk an apologetic smile, gripping her husband's hand a little tighter. "I'm sorry. My husband is just a passionate person, especially when it comes to our daughter, but no," she shook her head. "I'm going to stand by my husband because Quinn's happiness is first."

"Very well, then. I'll respect your wishes and keep her in the regular class. But," he held up a finger and Stephen suddenly felt the paternal instinct heighten at an alarmingly high rate and god, he really wanted to break more than just his bony finger. "In the next couple of years, if she wants to skip a grade of two, then we'll revisit this."

Stephen smiled a hard smile, making the words fall out of his mouth sound pained and forced.

"I'll see you later, Mr. Ashbury."

That night, his anger just melted away when beautiful brown eyes behind her first pair of glasses looked up at him, unbraided long brown hair framing her face.

"Daddy," Quinn held out a copy of Jane Austen's, _Pride & Prejudice_ towards him. "Can you read this to me for bed? I want to be like Elizabeth Bennett someday. It makes me wonder if I'll find a Mr. Darcy for me one day."

"Well, if there are going to be any Mr. Darcys for you, then they'll have through to just one Mr. Pensky."

Or he was just going to hit them with an accountant's deadliest weapon – a lot of math because numbers _were_ deadly. If that didn't work, he could always attempt to train Otis, the new alpaca Quinn has received as an holiday present, to sort of be dangerous. Otis had this thing with chewing into the pants of unsuspecting visitors.

"What?" Quinn giggled, as her father flipped the pages of the hardcover book. "Grandpa's here?"

"Ooh, you think you're good with humor, huh?"

"Not necessarily, but if I'm successful, then that's fine."

Stephen pulled his daughter close, pressing a kiss on her forehead, "I love you, Quinn."

"I love you too, Daddy."

Quinn fell asleep peacefully in his arms as he read about the story that was _Pride & Prejudice_.

* * *

"Okay," Terri says, the silence becoming thick. "I'm going to go into the kitchen and leave you guys to talk while I get some chamomile tea," she stands and directs a smile towards Logan and her eyes sparkle. "Logan, it was nice to see you again. Come by again, okay?"

Logan nods a short nod before Terri disappears into the kitchen, and the white doors open both ways.

"Look, I'm sorry I look like a fish out of water, but your question just caught me off guard," Stephen says, with a sigh. "I mean, Quinn's my baby and she just happens to come into this world a girl so that's just making me even more protective."

"Well," Logan smirks a little. "During my pre-Quinn days, I did have a thing with girls. Dating average was three times a week but Quinn is the first girl I'm actually serious about," In a rare occasion, Logan's tone is serious and Stephen is taken aback but strangely safe. God, he wants his little girl to be happy. And Logan's rough around the edges. He's wild, free-spirited and uninhibited while he knows Quinn thrives on meticulous order.

There's a sense of déjà vu – reserved, conservative Stephen and free-spirited, endearingly bubbly Terri.

"I just wanna do the whole marriage thing the right way," Logan admitted, honestly. "I have a ring picked out and could have been all surprising and taken her to Vegas or something – "

"And though I've come to respect you, value you as a son almost, but let's be honest," Stephen smiles. "I think I would have killed you for that."

He's not kidding.

He would've killed him, despite actually hitting it off with Heather and Malcolm in California.

"It would be a sad world without me."

"Oh, there's _that_ ego."

"What?"

"Huh?" Stephen says, quickly because that was really supposed to be an inside thought and Quinn does give him the heads up of _Dad, if Logan does say something narcissistic, that's kind of who he is but I love him despite that_. Bless that girl's heart. And she's his little girl. He claps his hands together. "Logan, I'm honoured you came down. It was under false pretences, but your heart was in the right place. I respect that," and then he pauses, thinking about it. "Sort of."

"So, do I have your green light on this?"

* * *

She was beautiful.

Completely and utterly beautiful with brown eyes that have a vice like grip on his heart so hard he was tearing up. Terri smiled weakly, her curly tendrils in her face slightly.

"Terri," he whispered. "She's completely perfect."

"I know," she replied, with a soft laugh. Sitting up slightly in her hospital bed with the IV in her hand, she winced lightly causing her husband to be concerned while carrying the pink bundle in his arms. She held up a hand and shook her head, silently assuring him that she was okay. "And I have a name for her. Quinn Sophia Pensky – the name Quinn means _wisdom_. And _Sophia_ is your mother's middle name."

Stephen smiled and brought his sleeping newborn to his lips in the first tender kiss of many.

"Hello Quinn," he greeted softly.

Baby Quinn's eyes opened in a silent greeting and Stephen fell in _paternal love_ that cold January night.

* * *

"Yeah," Stephen decides because it's so damn hard for him for him to hold on the brakes for so long and those damn red lights are about to change. And maybe he can slowly release his grasp and follow the green light every father has to make. He's smiling all content and offers a hand for Logan to shake firmly. "I'm ready for the light to change from red to green."

Logan's genuine smile falls as he takes his hand back from Stephen, confusion taking over his handsome face, "What?"

"It means," Stephen clarifies. "You have my blessing to marry Quinn. The green light is a metaphor."

"Ohh," Logan nods, sticking his hands in the pockets of his denim jeans. "In that case, uh, thanks."

"It's my pleasure."

There's the sound of an invisible traffic light changing from red to green and Stephen Pensky is slowing learning to _let go_ of his baby girl.

* * *

**A/N: Uh, yeah. So I understand Father's Day passed, but I started writing this last week. I'm aware there are more moments in Quinn's life but I felt they would ruin the flow of the story so I left it out. Hope you guys like. And I was listening to BEP's I Gotta Feeling and a friendship, semi-romance oneshot popped into my head. I was hoping someone would making a friendship video between the six characters (oh, wait – Dustin included) with this song. It's just a really feel-good, get-up-and-randomly-dance song. **

**If you make the video, I'll write you a oneshot of your choice. Deal?**

**Okie, dokie. Bedtime. Review.**

**-Erika**


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